The theme for 2013!

In my last post, after taking a moment to fill you in on some behind the scenes planning for Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) 2013, I hinted at sharing some campaign details soon. I'm excited to pick right up where we dropped off and share a few SAAM 2013 snippets today.

The campaign theme surfaces each year through feedback from our field and partners alongside an internal dialogue about directions, trends, needs and capacity. Past themes have focused resources and materials around specific topics, audiences, and settings. Last year, SAAM entered completely new territory by focusing on the topic of healthy sexuality. We heard from the field that this was an important direction and an approach worth focusing on. With that, healthy sexuality made it to the list, climbed its way to the top and we dove into exploring healthy sexuality as sexual violence prevention.

We’re still talking about it…

This year's theme was heavily informed by positive feedback from the 2012 campaign. In fact, we are still talking about it. Literally. In 2013, we will still be talking about it. The SAAM 2013 campaign will also focus on healthy sexuality as an approach to sexual violence prevention.

Talking about healthy sexuality pushed us into new prevention realms, and through developing the campaign we realized we still had a lot to say on the topic. We learned that we weren’t the only ones new to talking about healthy sexuality, and many of you took the plunge along with us, uncovering the many rich ways healthy sexuality bolsters sexual violence prevention.

Building the conversation: Child Sexual Abuse Prevention

But that’s not all we are talking about. We’d also like to get a little more specific in 2013, and the upcoming campaign will focus on healthy sexuality in relationship to child sexual abuse prevention.

The importance of child sexual abuse prevention cannot be overstated, and media coverage of recent events has brought this issue to the forefront for many Americans. Our movement has long shared prevention messages to parents and communities about changing the tide and protecting children. We’ve asked parents to partner, community members to engage as bystanders, and programmers to share this message so that it sticks. We believe a healthy sexuality framework can strengthen these efforts and enhance this message by equipping adults to start the conversation as parents, community members and partners in prevention.

As we work to create tangible tools that partners can adapt and implement as relevant for SAAM 2013, we hope you will join us in talking about it too. In 2012, your support of SAAM was incredible, even as healthy sexuality may have been a new, challenging or complicated topic. This year, we look forward to having you alongside us - staying the course - for a deeper exploration of how healthy sexuality can inform our work, communities and individuals lives.

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